I just hope Apple keeps adding more pixels and doesn't cheap out just for the sake of thinness. Gave us the 12 mega pixel for next iphone

Really? 8 million pixels (8 megapixels) is not enough? You realize that that is nearly 4 times the number of pixels on a 1080p screen, and over 2 times the number of pixels on the 27" iMac and Cinema Display. 4K displays do have about 850,000 more pixels, but 4K displays are not going to be very mainstream for a LONG time, so I wouldn't worry too much about megapixels for a while. Worry more about the sensors, aperture, etc.

You say that as if it's an absolute, but it's not. The statement that makes that true is "Given the same technology..."

They could, for example, bump the next iPhone camera up to 12MP and it could have better images with more dynamic range than the 4S. The lens, sensor size, the sensor technology (BSI), the A/D converters, and the processing all play a major part.

That said, I'd prefer the newer technology AND stay at 8MP for better available light, low-light images.

Technology has a long way to go, but eventually pixels will have to stop getting smaller. A really tiny pixel simply cannot collect enough light to get a decent signal to noise ratio.

You say that as if it's an absolute, but it's not. The statement that makes that true is "Given the same technology..."

...

That said, I'd prefer the newer technology AND stay at 8MP for better available light, low-light images.

Yes, you are right. It comes down to preference. Like you, I value available light photography with good dynamic range much more than higher resolution images obtained with flash. I also see no value in a phone thinner than a 4/4S. Others may have different ideas, but I just wanted to note that extra pixels do come at a cost in terms of other aspects of image quality.

Also, lens resolving power is often way less than the sensors pixel density, since nobody publishes (or expects to see) lens resolution specs on a phone camera. Apple has done a good job staying away from chasing one-dimensional specs like pixel counts.

Somehow, the system captures light from multiple angles and there is no need to focus as you shoot.
Focusing is done when you view the captured image, and you can apparently change the focal
point from near to far while you view the images.

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YEP it's a great invention - and think fitting it to an iPhone would make the iPhone only about 5 inches thick!
- umm - which is maybe not quite so thin as it currently is...

Seems like you might be more in need of an iChain/wrist cuff solution.

lol, and to not go out so much at bars and get shit faced.. you don't know how relieved I feel with my crap phone now that I can leave it in the car lying around and go out and get a mag or something, or forget it on a stand while I am buying a ticket, etc. etc. cause nobody cares to steal it... (not to mention the compulsion to check email or google everything up)... I am all for dumb phones now... and I 've almost lost my ipad 3 times from forgetting it around...lolololol!!!

The first is mine: the ability to take a picture and not have to worry about focusing because you can make the focus anywhere in the picture after it's taken. So if you screw up the perfect shot because you accidentally put the focus too far forward or back (or if it's off by just a little), you can adjust it at your leisure.

Then there's this belief:

Your decision, really. Personally, I DON'T feel that light field photography is to the photography industry what 3D is to the movie industrya huge, pointless gimmick. I feel that it's the future.

Light field cameras are also not just about "focussing after the fact."

An iPhone with an advanced light field array of sensors on the back would work more or less like the compound eyes of a dragonfly. If you are wondering why that's important, Dragonflies have vision thats more or less as good as a humans.

Potentially, "light field" compound-eye type cameras with multiple sensors could give us pictures of comparable quality to SLR cameras with their giant lenses. Who wouldn't want a phone with a digital "SLR quality" camera in it?

This technology is under development at several companies as we speak. It may happen next year or it may be ten years but it will happen (unless something even more miraculous supersedes it before it arrives).

Apple needs to move its manufacturing out of China.
What good is an embargo on Iranian oil if China is going to buy it all so that it can run factories to produce goods for America?

In other words, how long will Apple investors support the Iranian regime and terrorism?

Or has the long arms of a blind capitalist society become too long for people to recognize and understand their actions? That your sending your countrymen off to die in wars so that you can watch your investments grow. Do you even understand that as the stock price grows, so does the body count of your neighbors?

Where is the voice of Apple investors to bring manufacturing home and employ some of the 60+ million people out of work, homeless and living in poverty.
Silenced by greed and little green ticker numbers?

Shame on you investors and your blood monies. It doesn't have to be this way. You should be demanding Apple invest in R&D at home and develop your own technologies. Sure Sony is an ally country - but buying their technology because you have bankrupted society at home so that people can no longer afford education, and the brain-drain train that is full steam ahead... do you see the short sightedness of this folly?

You have a voice and responsibility as investors.
Be the change you want to see.

yep. folks seem to forget that the cameras aren't the only thing that cause the phone etc to be 'fat'

Like that new 4g chipset I'm betting will be crammed in there by next fall - and even if there's a smaller, more efficient part available then compared to today, it will still in all likelihood be a bigger power drain than the current one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by myapplelove

for the love of god not any more obsessions with thinness...more battery life PLEASE. Ever since I had my third iphone stolen (yeah, the third...) and reverted back to my charge once use for the week phone I am enjoying sheer battery bliss. Of course I am not expecting such a thing from a smartphone but more than a couple of days realistic battery life would be nice.

See above.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX

If they can thin it out while being more power efficient they likely will... and Gorilla Glass 2 allows them to lose 20% on both the front and back glass without changing any of the internals.

Because you can be too heavy and large to appeal to users. There is a balance that has to be met. Since Apple already has the best battery life in the industry I don't see them moving to a much larger and heavier device just to add a significantly larger battery. If they can thin it out while being more power efficient they likely will... and Gorilla Glass 2 allows them to lose 20% on both the front and back glass without changing any of the internals. If you really want a significant amount increased there are always Mophie products.

Don't think larger... think the same size as the 4S.

Let's assume that Apple have the ability to shave 4mm from the depth of the next iPhone.

To me, that extra 4mm wouldn't really offer a better user experience over the existing iPhone.

However, if Apple kept the same dimensions as the 4S and filled the extra space with a bigger battery they could conceivably double the battery life.

To me, double the battery length would offer a better user experience over the existing iPhone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX

I think the iPhone 4 with the 5Mpx camera uses the same size sensor as the iPhone 4S with an 8Mpx camera. The 4S's sensor is much better, but the pixels are unfortunately smaller, if I remember correctly.

I wish this kind of stuff was more obvious in the marketing material.

I've often thought that Apple is probably the only company in the world with the clout to start a new trend of labelling cameras with their mega pixel rating as well as some kind of a lumens per pixel rating.

Like that new 4g chipset I'm betting will be crammed in there by next fall - and even if there's a smaller, more efficient part available then compared to today, it will still in all likelihood be a bigger power drain than the current one.

Apple needs to move its manufacturing out of China.
What good is an embargo on Iranian oil if China is going to buy it all so that it can run factories to produce goods for America?
In other words, how long will Apple investors support the Iranian regime and terrorism?

Or has the long arms of a blind capitalist society become too long for people to recognize and understand their actions? That your sending your countrymen off to die in wars so that you can watch your investments grow. Do you even understand that as the stock price grows, so does the body count of your neighbors?

Where is the voice of Apple investors to bring manufacturing home and employ some of the 60+ million people out of work, homeless and living in poverty.
Silenced by greed and little green ticker numbers?

Shame on you investors and your blood monies. It doesn't have to be this way. You should be demanding Apple invest in R&D at home and develop your own technologies. Sure Sony is an ally country - but buying their technology because you have bankrupted society at home so that people can no longer afford education, and the brain-drain train that is full steam ahead... do you see the short sightedness of this folly?

You have a voice and responsibility as investors.
Be the change you want to see.

Apple needs to move its manufacturing out of China.
What good is an embargo on Iranian oil if China is going to buy it all so that it can run factories to produce goods for America?
In other words, how long will Apple investors support the Iranian regime and terrorism?

Or has the long arms of a blind capitalist society become too long for people to recognize and understand their actions? That your sending your countrymen off to die in wars so that you can watch your investments grow. Do you even understand that as the stock price grows, so does the body count of your neighbors?

Where is the voice of Apple investors to bring manufacturing home and employ some of the 60+ million people out of work, homeless and living in poverty.
Silenced by greed and little green ticker numbers?

Shame on you investors and your blood monies. It doesn't have to be this way. You should be demanding Apple invest in R&D at home and develop your own technologies. Sure Sony is an ally country - but buying their technology because you have bankrupted society at home so that people can no longer afford education, and the brain-drain train that is full steam ahead... do you see the short sightedness of this folly?

You have a voice and responsibility as investors.
Be the change you want to see.

Please go through your house, garage, office and tool shed and find everything not made in the USA and throw it in the trash. Then come back and tell us how you walk the talk.

Personally, I DON'T feel that light field photography is to the photography industry what 3D is to the movie industrya huge, pointless gimmick. I feel that it's the future.

There have been cellphone cameras for more than five years that have used wavefront coding for extended depth of field (no need to focus, everything is always in focus using post-processing of the sensor's light field information). In fact, there were rumors that Apple would use one of Omnivisions "TrueFocus" wavefront coding sensors in 2007 in the original iPhone, but Apple used a different Omnivision chip instead. I'm not sure why the new light field stuff is getting people excited -- I think you can do similar refocusing tricks with the wavefront coding sensors.

Actually, there is an aftermarket vendor working on removing the camera entirely for sale to individuals who can not have any photographic device with them. Apple should explore the "option delete" for the camera. I think they would be surprised.

P.S. Besides, how hard can it be to simply leave out a part or two and mask the area where the lenses were?

Apple needs to move its manufacturing out of China.
What good is an embargo on Iranian oil if China is going to buy it all so that it can run factories to produce goods for America?
In other words, how long will Apple investors support the Iranian regime and terrorism?

Or has the long arms of a blind capitalist society become too long for people to recognize and understand their actions? That your sending your countrymen off to die in wars so that you can watch your investments grow. Do you even understand that as the stock price grows, so does the body count of your neighbors?

Where is the voice of Apple investors to bring manufacturing home and employ some of the 60+ million people out of work, homeless and living in poverty.
Silenced by greed and little green ticker numbers?

Shame on you investors and your blood monies. It doesn't have to be this way. You should be demanding Apple invest in R&D at home and develop your own technologies. Sure Sony is an ally country - but buying their technology because you have bankrupted society at home so that people can no longer afford education, and the brain-drain train that is full steam ahead... do you see the short sightedness of this folly?

You have a voice and responsibility as investors.
Be the change you want to see.

This is politics, not Apple talk. However, since you started: America has for 150 years, every decade, invaded a country. Yellow journalism created wars as far back as the 1880's. The USA have NO CREDIBILITY WHATSOEVER talking about morals.

Iran, on the other hand, is a 6000 years old country, that gave birth to monotheism with Zoroastrism, that heavily modified Islam and organised its elite, and more importantly that has been shunned by the international community since it rebelled against the exploitation of its oil by anglosaxon companies in the thirties.

Moreover, Iran wants nukes to defend against another aggressive country that has nukes (see the Vanini affair to understand), and that has bombed their neighbors repeatedly (just check the reactor "Osirak"s fate).

Pretending that Iran is the bad guy may or may not be true. Pretending that the USA have ANY moral right in playing tough with Iran is, simply put, playing gunman for a mafia boss. Guess who.

Social Capitalist, dreamer and wise enough to know I'm never going to grow up anyway... so not trying anymore.

There have been cellphone cameras for more than five years that have used wavefront coding for extended depth of field (no need to focus, everything is always in focus using post-processing of the sensor's light field information). In fact, there were rumors that Apple would use one of Omnivisions "TrueFocus" wavefront coding sensors in 2007 in the original iPhone, but Apple used a different Omnivision chip instead. I'm not sure why the new light field stuff is getting people excited -- I think you can do similar refocusing tricks with the wavefront coding sensors.

I think there is one particular difference between the two techniques that may matter in terms of the final image.

Light field recording preserves all information on subject distances, allowing reconstruction of images with arbitrary focus plane and depth of field. Very expensive on resolution of course.

Wavefront coding produces a raw image that is approximately equally blurred over a very large depth of field, allowing digital signal processing to produce a one final image that is in focus over that large depth of field, but no control over depth of field or focus plane - i.e. mimics a very small aperture without a reduction in light gathering.

Screw pixels. I want the best sensor and lens on the freaking planet. There's no reason for a 12 MP camera.

While I agree increasing pixel count is not the way to improve photography, one cannot simply make this statement on its own. One can say there's no reason to opt for a 12 MP sensor that has the same size, dynamic range, etc. One say can it would be better to opt for a larger sensor without increasing pixel count. But it would be wrong to dismiss 12 MP on its own merit, just as it is wrong now for the digital camera industry to pretend that pixel count is the most important spec to keep increasing.

This is politics, not Apple talk. However, since you started: America has for 150 years, every decade, invaded a country. Yellow journalism created wars as far back as the 1880's. The USA have NO CREDIBILITY WHATSOEVER talking about morals.

Iran, on the other hand, is a 6000 years old country, that gave birth to monotheism with Zoroastrism, that heavily modified Islam and organised its elite, and more importantly that has been shunned by the international community since it rebelled against the exploitation of its oil by anglosaxon companies in the thirties.

Moreover, Iran wants nukes to defend against another aggressive country that has nukes (see the Vanini affair to understand), and that has bombed their neighbors repeatedly (just check the reactor "Osirak"s fate).

Pretending that Iran is the bad guy may or may not be true. Pretending that the USA have ANY moral right in playing tough with Iran is, simply put, playing gunman for a mafia boss. Guess who.

Some good points. It's indeed hypocritical for nations armed with nuclear weapons to tell another nation it cannot pursue the same *protection*.

I think there is one particular difference between the two techniques that may matter in terms of the final image.

Light field recording preserves all information on subject distances, allowing reconstruction of images with arbitrary focus plane and depth of field. Very expensive on resolution of course.

Wavefront coding produces a raw image that is approximately equally blurred over a very large depth of field, allowing digital signal processing to produce a one final image that is in focus over that large depth of field, but no control over depth of field or focus plane - i.e. mimics a very small aperture without a reduction in light gathering.

As long as there is enough information in the captured pixels to produce a crude depth-map for an all-in-focus image (i.e., about how far away is the thing captured by each pixel), then a blur filter applied to parts of the in-focus image can do a pretty good simulation of controlled depth of field. Computational imaging techniques seem to just be getting started, and I doubt if the Lytro idea is efficient enough in its use of available light to be the future.

As long as there is enough information in the captured pixels to produce a crude depth-map for an all-in-focus image (i.e., about how far away is the thing captured by each pixel), then a blur filter applied to parts of the in-focus image can do a pretty good simulation of controlled depth of field. Computational imaging techniques seem to just be getting started, and I doubt if the Lytro idea is efficient enough in its use of available light to be the future.

That's a fascinating paper - thanks. It's still not apparent to me though that wavefront coding alone captures distance data even enough for a crude depth map. I thought the whole point of the aspheric lens in the transform plane was to make the degree of defocus a very insensitive function of object distance, which surely amounts to discarding the distance data.

To quote from page 2 of the Levin et al. paper you referenced:

"We note, however, that many approaches such as coded apertures and our new lattice-focal lens involve a depth-dependent PSF φd and require a challenging depth identification stage. On the positive side, such systems output a coarse depth map of the scene in addition to the all-focused image. In contrast, designs like wavefront coding and focus sweep have an important advantage: their blur kernel is invariant to depth."
Am I missing something fundamental there?

I think the bigger problem with the Lytro (light field) technique is that all those extra data have to be captured. With the image resolution now defined by the microlens array rather than the sensor, and requiring multiple pixels under each microlens to resolve the ray directions, you need a huge sensor pixel count to maintain the image resolution that we are accustomed to. On the other hand, since you can still sum and average the intensities across those sub-lens pixel sets to construct the dynamic range of the image, the loss of light efficiency should less of a problem.

Like that new 4g chipset I'm betting will be crammed in there by next fall - and even if there's a smaller, more efficient part available then compared to today, it will still in all likelihood be a bigger power drain than the current one.

That means 4G phones with similar battery life/size as current 3G phones.

Good news - but with a caveat. Let's cross our fingers as the article also points out:

Quote:

As you may have heard however, the move to 28nm at both TSMC and Global Foundries isn't really going all that smoothly. The jump from 4x-nm to 28nm is a very big one, so it's not unexpected to have pretty serious teething problems as the process ramps up. I suspect that an aggressive 28nm roadmap that didn't pan out probably caught a lot of SoC and smartphone vendors in a position where they couldn't ship what they wanted to in 2011.